


you've been scared of love (and what it did to you)

by starrynights234



Series: Keep Me (I Suit You) [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (sorry), -Ish, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Finn/Rose Tico, Post-Canon, Post-TRoS, Rey-Centric, mention of reylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22091827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrynights234/pseuds/starrynights234
Summary: "I kissed Ben.""Ren?""Why?""I... I don't know."
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey, Poe Dameron/Rey, Rey/Finn
Series: Keep Me (I Suit You) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1550842
Comments: 9
Kudos: 102





	you've been scared of love (and what it did to you)

**Author's Note:**

> A fix-it fic for the mish-mash that that was TROS aka me trying to justify why the FUCK disney thought it was a good idea for their female protagonist to kiss not only her on-screen abuser but also a literal fascist who's responsible for countless deaths across their fictional universe INCLUDING his own father and to an extent his mother and uncle. It's almost like they have no respect for women or don't care what narrative cohesion, and not being PUSSIES, is. Hm. 
> 
> Anyway, have Rey as the unfortunate proxy for their terrible decision and let Poe and Finn gently and tenderly explain to her, me, and you, why that was not a great nor justified decision. Enjoy!

"I kissed Ben."

She murmurs it small and soft into Finn's collarbone. Her eyes are narrowed but tight - brimming with her thoughts. 

" _Ren_?" Poe is up on an elbow. Finn's fingers slip down into the hair at the nape of his neck and curl. Poe falters for a moment, eyes fluttering and Finn takes over. 

"Why?" His voice harder, less shock and more... confused. Worried. 

"I... I don't know," Two pairs of dark eyes focused on her pinched face. Her own gaze stays stuck to Poe's knee - overlapping Finns and pressing to the joint beneath her knee-cap. Bent over Finn, one nearer his shin, the other nearer his pelvis, both surrounding, clutching, encasing him, "After what he did, who he'd become, what he had _done_ , and then he was there, looking at me and..." 

She had sat up. And then Poe was there, eye level, brows almost frowning, fingers hesitant on her cheek. His hand had found the thought before he did, stroking slow and reassuring under loose damp strands - and shaking, trembling for something darker and deeper than fear. "Rey," 

"It felt right," Finn spoke between them and they turned to his face upturned staring at the dark ceiling from its place on the pillow, "Like what you were meant to do."

"Yeah," Her voice a waft, a whisper. And thought. 

She remembered him there, exhausted, breathing heavily, the tip of his nose bumping hers, his breath on her mouth, the weight of his sacrifice heavy between them, his dark eyes flickered down past her nose, her cupid's bow, his large hand was dwarfing her cheek. He leaned in. The man who had saved her life, given his life force for, was looking down at her in awe and _awaiting._ So she kissed back.

Her voice was clear, "Yes." 

"Rose-" He shook his head, sitting up on an elbow and rubbed the hand that had just been tucked in Poe's curls down his face. Rey and Poe shared a look. 

Finn didn't talk about Rose. Rey had received pieces here and there from Poe and Jessika. A look or two. Discreet hand-holding under cafeteria tables. A kiss behind the target-practice shelter. But then it seemed it was over. A shrug from Jess and a sigh from Poe, along with what he thought was a discreet smile. 

Poe squeezed his knee trapped between his and Rey's, "Buddy, you don't have to..." He'd always known her sister better - Rose a character and a chapter in Finn's story he knew nothing about other than the glimpses, _the gut-punching glimpses,_ he caught in the weeks after the battle on Crait. 

"Rose was the kinda the same. She was... special. Of course, she still is. But not. Not in that way." He spoke into the flesh of his palm, ashamed, guilty, "Not in the way she wanted," He met Rey's eyes, "She kissed me on Crait. And after it seemed like the right thing to do was... carry on. But it wasn't what _I_ wanted," He smudged a quick thumb across her shoulder, "It just felt like that at the time. In the after." 

Rey nodded slowly, breaking her gaze with him to ponder back at the spot on Poe's knee. She didn't see the two men engage in a silent conversation next to her. _Finn,_ a shake of his head, a hand on the back of his neck, _I'm sorry,_ a thumb rubbing his ear, _don't be,_ a shaky smile, a warm returned smile. 

"He laughed after. And I saw it. I _saw_ the love in him." She frowned, lost in the memory of his choked grin, "And I think I felt it too." 

"Rey." Poe shuffled closer as much as he could with his legs tangled with Finn's and hers and squeezed her knee. His tone said all the doubt and worry and care and Rey huffed. 

"What else could it have been? I kissed him." 

He snorted and ducked his head to the side to lift her gaze from the mattress, his voice impossibly soft, "Kissing isn't love." 

She could only shake her head minutely. She had felt it, a hundred thousand voices, praising her, praising _him,_ thanking _him,_ and she felt the pull to kiss him. To thank him, for all of them, "He saved my life. Saved the Jedi-" 

"But you don't owe him anything for that." He insisted gently and tucked loose strands of her dark hair behind her ear, thumb pressed against the curve of her jaw, "He joined the First Order. He killed innocents. Almost killed _you_. And, yes, he did change at the end and yes, he did," His voice shakes a note and he clears his throat, "He did save you. But that doesn't and never means you owe him _anything_. Even if he had done none of those terrible, disgusting things _you still owed him absolutely nothing._ " 

The seriousness of his voice had her reaching, a hand on his knee, and he held it in his there. "I felt it..." 

"You felt an obligation." Finn's voice is louder than the hushed words they had lowered to exchange between them and then his face is there too. brows deepened and dark eyes looking at her. Understanding. Confident. Her anchor. 

She swallowed. Looked down at her hands intertwined with Poe's - his palm warm against the back of her hand, "What does it feel like? To want to?" 

Poe half-laughs because what a _question_. How could he explain? She had been so alone, she had always been so alone, but now she's here, before him, lips parted and he can see that she's oblivious. Oblivious to such a wonderful, magical, powerful... feeling. An ache, unexplainable, indescribable, an instinct. An instinct, "It's... it's like the force." 

She frowns. Wavers. Blinks. Her eyes flickered across his face. Nods. 

"There! Like that!" He lifts his other hand to her face, cupping her jaw, and he's grinning now. Rey can feel it in her chest, warm and pleasant, knowing that smile is for her, only her, "It's an instinct. A feeling." 

Finn's hand presses hot between her shoulder blades and then his face is there too, smiling, "A trust." 

"When you want to kiss someone," Her eyes met his again and he took a moment, a tiny moment, to breath it in. His voice that follows is lower and quieter, "Want to kiss someone, it's not like an order. It's deeper. It's distinct. It's..." 

Finn followed his thought, "Powerful. Like when you can sense something with the force. You... you can't describe it. But you feel it," He places his hand over her stomach, and it's somehow warmer than the one on her back, pressing into the softness there, "Right here. Tugging and twisting and you can't ignore it." 

"I-I think I understand." Her eyes lower in thought, remembering, wondering, perhaps realising, and her chin and shoulders follow. Her hands act before the memory can fully resurface, grabbing and holding the hands gently slipping away from her - one on her cheek, the other on her stomach. Both their mouths open but she speaks first, "Takodana." 

She turns to Finn and she's there. 

She's stood a step above him, his eyes peering up at her, dark and pleading and kind, his features lit by the white sky bleeding through the windows, the muttering of others ignored, his hand brushed hers, his mouth parts below hers, come with me, her jaw clenches, her stomach lurches at the softness of his eyes and his voice and his skin and his mouth, don't go.

"You were leaving," She swallows a _me_ , "I tried to stop you. You asked me to-" 

"Come with me." His voice is as soft as it was then, hushed in the space between them, and while his eyes she was sure were just as kind and safe, she couldn’t look, couldn’t move her gaze from his mouth. His breath brushed over her lips, close, the room was bathed in intimate darkness unlike the steps of that castle, close, her stomach was aching and tugging her forward toward an anchor, closer.

"I felt it." She whispers, squeezes his hand. His bottom lip grazes hers and _he lied._ This wasn't like the force. Not at all. The force was a weight in her gut that sat and waited. It moved with her, dropping and rising, like a second heart, pumping energy into her veins to act and act _now_. The force was an old, old feeling. The grip of her slipping fingers, the quick jab of her staff, the bypass of a compressor, the push onto Ben's mouth. It was a guide. But here she was lost. The tug and twist in her stomach was something fiercer and more impatient and the closer, _closer_ , Finn's lips came the more desperate and more painful the feeling clawed at her stomach. She couldn't raise her voice above a whisper if she tried, "I feel it." 

Her name is on his lips as she finally closes the space. For a moment they remain still, pressed against one another in such a new way. Different to shoulders, chests and hips flush in quick relief. Different to hands clutching between them. Different even to foreheads nudging one another in the dead of night. It was intimate, it was closer than they'd ever been and she wanted more. More closeness. More intimacy. More _everything_. The hand on her back rubbed down her back to settle on the small of her back, then hand on his on her stomach crossing over his forearm to glide over his chest, his shoulder, his neck, curling and then cradling his head. Tilting, urging, _closer, please,_ his lips parted against hers and she started a slow rhythm meeting him again and again and again, _don't go,_ and again and again and ag-

She drew back. His eyes opened, dark irises hazy. Her eyes flickered back down to his mouth for a moment. She felt a little light-headed. She looked down at Finn's hand against her stomach and breathed heavily. But she didn't miss the silent conversation that time. 

The meeting of two pairs of eyes, one pair careful to cover their surprise, the other slowly melting from unfocused to guilty, Finn's mouth bobbing open, Poe shaking his head, _Rey?,_ a wide-eyed nod, a widening grin, _me too,_ thumb reaching to sweep over a bottom lip, a kiss, two pairs of eyes meeting once more, steady. 

"I'm right here, you know." They both jolted, confirming her suspicion. Finn met her eyes intensely apologetically but softened endearingly when she broke into a smile. He returned it. It felt nice to smile so easily. She turned to Poe, determined to solidify the bridge slowly forming now between the three of them when she met his gaze. 

He wasn't looking at her, he was seeing her. All of her, the cut on her hairline, the smudge of dirt she had missed in her ear, the unbrushed dark strands of her damp hair hung limp around her cheeks, the faint freckles on her nose trailing down to her cupid's bow, the want in her mouth and the apprehension in her eyes. But there was no expectation in his face, in his eyes, on his mouth. His hand was on her cheek, warm and large yes, like his was, but it was... it was _stroking._ Just lightly. The pad of his thumb brushing over and over and over her cheekbone; a steady rhythm. Reassuring. Adoring. She raised her hand to his wrist and felt the gentle heartbeat. It wasn't in time with his fingers - it was too fast - and she smiled in spite of herself. 

He was nearer. They were perched almost on top of either of Finn's thighs. Finn's hand was still on her stomach, hot. The tip of his nose bumped hers. A huff of laughter puffed out her nose and Poe chuckled back, deep in the back of his throat and Rey could feel the tremor of it. It was enthralling to be this close. A treasure trove of under-discovered sensations buried in the space between them. His laughter against her ear with her head pressed against his chest, against her cheek with her nose pressed against his throat, against her lips with her mouth pressed against his. She wanted it. She wanted it all. 

Over and over and over. He had paused.

He was waiting for _her_. 

The wait didn't last for long.

They were unaligned, as in, not quite in as sync with one another as they each were with Finn. His mouth more frantic, intense, not quite allowing her full control. A firm press, a tiny pull back, a gentle nip. She could feel his lips twitch against hers. She parted her lips and he groaned lightly, surging forward, balancing her with the hand on her cheek to pull her in closer and deeper. He was pushing against her, playfully but passionately unrelinquishing his control of the rhythm. She found it invigorating. Exhilarating. Safe. To not know what his mouth, his tongue, his hands, were going to do next but then to still know she was safe, here, to do whatever it is he should do to unravel her and hold her and _love_ her - that whatever it is he may do it was for _her._ Not to cause debt. Not to then be exchanged. But because he desired her so thoroughly., so completely. It was.; it was; _it was._

When she drew back she was trembling. Poe leant forward to press his forehead to hers. She took a deep quivering breath. He kissed her nose. Poe's hand slipped off her face to gently hold her hand. His thumb rubbed her smallest finger. 

_Relief, so so so much relief she felt like crying, she felt like screaming, she felt like sleeping, her feet were moving and she was searching, overwhelmed faces, woman, woman, man, droid, man, an orange jumpsuit, her feet moved faster, Poe, they broke into a run, Finn, she crashed into them, she grabbed the both of them, held them, held them so close, she never wanted to let go, to lose the solid and safe and,_ _here_ _with her finally and forever,_ _of their backs and shoulders and choked breathing. She reached for Poe's hand. He took it._

A second nose nudged her temple. He kissed her cheek, "Are you okay?" 

_Sandy fog, adrenaline pumping through her veins, sand in her eyes, his limp body, people rushing around them, the sand on his cheeks, her hand shaking at his shoulder, the scream of tie fighters, the yelling of people, the jolt in his body, the supple leather of his jacket creasing, sand seeping out the furrows, the jacket that would be hung over her shoulders a few days after, a few months after, hung over the bedpost of her bed. Hey. The fear in his dark eyes. A question she'd never been asked. Yeah. She outstretched her hand. He took it._

"I am now." 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, that's right, I did what Disney could never do: let a woman dictate her own romantic desire in a way that's satisfying for her character arc, for wider female representation, and that makes thematic goddamn sense. Take FUCKING NOTES, Kathleen and Bob.


End file.
